Mark Weiss wrote:
> Oh you optimist. I was teaching Death in Venus in an upper-level college
> world lit course. One student in a paper described the scene in which
> Aschenbach gets his hair dyed. "Isn't it wonderful," she wrote, "what a
> makeover can do for you. Because of the barber and Tadzio Aschenbach gets
> to live out the rest of his days in happiness in Venice." I'd like to think
> she got that from the cliffnotes.
>
> Mark
Oh. My. God.
I don't think even Cliff's Notes got it that wrong. Wow.
When I was TA-ing in 1972 The English Authorities at Binghamton gave me
a dramatic lit course called Tragedy & Tragicomedy, and I was able to
construct my own syllabus: a huge freedom compared to the lockstep
curricula of junior college composition courses. I put Ibsen's "Hedda
Gabler" on the list. One kid wrote a paper in which he described Hedda
as a sacrificial victim. Hmmmm. And how did we get there? Hedda=Head
Of. Gabler=Turkey. Head of a Turkey. It was, wrote my student,
Ibsen's play about Thanksgiving Day.
You better believe I was laughing. I said in class to the student "Good
thing you're a graduating senior otherwise your ass would be grass." I
was kidding, he was fooling around, and actually I hope he wound up as a
comedy writer because that actually was both ballsy and damn near brilliant.
They didn't take nearly so well to Michel de Ghelderode's "Pantagleize,"
which they thought was boring, racist, and anti-Semitic. I don't know
if more than 10 people outside Belgium know who Ghelderode WAS, but in
this crew I'll bet it's at least 11:-).
Ken
--
Kenneth Wolman
Proposal Development Department
Room SW334
Sarnoff Corporation
609-734-2538
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